While that mystery remains unsolved for now, Book Twitter’s sleuthing was not for nothing. By the end of the day, the New York Times had released a revised list that excluded Handbook for Mortals and returned The Hate U Give to its rightful place in the top spot.

On Monday, BBC News published an article whose headline asked: “Does the world need polymaths?” It examined why experts historically felt the need to excel in many disciplines, but now typically focus on only one. On Tuesday, as if the universe were playing some kind of cosmic joke, news broke that Bradley Walsh is set to be cast as the latest companion in the new series of Doctor Who. If there was ever a need for proof that the renaissance man is back, baby, then Bradley Walsh is that proof.

But sport’s loss was television’s gain. After a stint as a Pontins’ bluecoat, Walsh hit the small screen, first as a presenter, a format that one might describe as his true calling, in which he continues to excel today as the host of ITV’s The Chase. Thankfully, his Doctor Who commitments won’t interfere, according to an anonymous friend who spoke to the Mirror to express relief. “He loves that show with a passion and so does the audience, so he’s delighted to have found a way to make it all work.”

Back in 2014, we caught up with some of Chicago’s most prominent afrofuturist artists and musicians like David Boykin, Nick Cave, and Cauleen Smith. But what about the city’s poets and writers? Through science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and surrealism, these three women are keeping Chicago at the center of the afrofuturist conversation….

Eve Ewing

Growing up in Logan Square, Eve Ewing used to daydream about “shooting arrows, exploring dungeons, and solving mysteries” while riding her bike. She didn’t hear the word “afrofuturism” until her 20s, but as a child she watched Geordi La Forge on Star Trek and listened to George Clinton. Today, Ewing’s one of Chicago’s most visible cultural icons, from her reporting on Chicago Public Schools to her debut poetry collection, Electric Arches (Haymarket Books, Sept. 12), which looks at Chicago’s South and West Sides through an afrofuturist lens.

“The book is an attempt to use poetry to write a future, and to me that future has to be a free black future,” Ewing says. In Electric Arches, lunar aliens invade Chicago and paint everything black, a time machine allows a fifth-grader to speak with her ancestors, and South Side children escape the police on flying bicycles.

“Part of what makes afrofuturism interesting and distinct is that blackness in America demands an honest reckoning with a violent and traumatic past,” she says. “And here we are in Chicago, a city where black life has been crafted in the face of generations of inconceivable violence: gun violence, state violence, everything. I think we are tasked with thinking beyond this world, about how to live in spite of and beyond everything trying to kill us.”

(4) ELEMENTARY. Award-winning speculative poet Mary Soon Lee, writing in Science, composed a haiku for each element in the Period Table: “Elemental Haiku”.

There were so many Worldcon newcomers this year that the committee ran out of FIRST WORLDCON ribbons for attendees to affix to their badges and had to print up new ones halfway through the con.

So there are people out there who want to be part of this special thing we have. How do we make them feel welcome?

One thing I made sure to do was approach every person I noticed wearing a FIRST WORLDCON ribbon and say … well … “Welcome!”

I told them I was glad they’d decided to join us, and asked the catalyst that caused them to come this particular year. I told them I hoped they were having a good time so far, and said that if they had any questions, I’d try to answer them. I shared an anecdote or two about why I fell in love with Worldcons so long ago.

And he has a great anecdote about this on his Facebook page, involving some 2017 first-timers, 1963 first-timers, and 1953 first timers all comparing notes in Helsinki.

(6) SUITABLY ILLUSTRATED. Hugo-nominated fanartist Vesa Lehtimäki has written a short W75 report:

(7) MEDICAL UPDATE. Chunga co-editor Randy Byers, one of the best guys in fandom, says in “Gimme a break” he has reached a point in his cancer therapy where he’s stopping chemo and medical treatment while he and his doctor assess how they want to proceed,

The initial offerings of the online compendium, which will be expanded as the GMS develops, range from a 15th-century song translated from Middle French that bemoans a lost love (“Two or three days ago / my sweet love went away / without saying anything to me. Alas, who will comfort me?”) to five selections from Hong Mai’s 12th-century Yijian Zhi (or, Record of the Listener, hereafter the Record), a sprawling 420-chapter chronicle that is an invaluable record of society, spirituality, and culture of the Southern Song Dynasty. The GMS is, as suggested by its title, a globally focused resource, with plans for medieval texts translated from Arabic, Chinese, Old Spanish, Latin, Middle High German, Old English, and Old French.

“[A] major aspect of our work to present a broad view of medieval culture is to actively recruit content from many different languages, especially those which have historically been inaccessible to contemporary readers,” Lyons-Penner explained. “It is very unusual for texts from so many different linguistic traditions to be read side by side, and we believe it makes for a much richer experience.”

Game of Thrones has sparked a battle at a Australian housing development where streets have been named after characters and locations from the high-rating television show.

The developer of Charlemont Rise at Geelong in Victoria said he had been forced to change the name of Lannaster Road because of the link to the incestuous Lannister siblings from Game of Thrones.

“The name was knocked back by the developers next door because of the relationship between the Lannister brother and sister on the show,” said the project manager, Gary Smith. “I even changed the spelling to make it not as obvious.”

Lannaster Road will henceforth be known as Precinct Road.

There have been no complaints about the other street names in the estate, more than a dozen of which were inspired by the show, Smith said. Among the names are Stannis, Winterfell, Greyjoy, Baelish and Tywin.

(10) THOMAS OBIT. Actor Jay Thomas (1948-2017) died August 24. His genre work included 20 episodes of Mork and Mindy, 6 episodes of Hercules, voicing an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, and The Santa Clause 2 and 3.

And he appeared on Letterman annually during the Christmas season to repeat his Clayton Moore story (quoted here from the Wikipedia):

As the story goes, after the appearance Thomas, who at the time sported what he referred to as a “white man’s Afro“, and his friend, who was wearing high heeled shoes, tight pants, and a tie-dyed shirt, went off to get “herbed up” (smoke marijuana) behind a dumpster, after the broadcast ended. When they returned to pack up their equipment, they discovered that Moore was still there, as the car that was supposed to drive him to the Red Carpet Inn on Morehead Street (some years he would say the Red Roof Inn) never arrived. Thomas offered Moore a ride in his old Volvo, and Moore accepted. As they were sitting in traffic, an impatient middle-aged man backed his Buick into the front end of Thomas’ car, broke a headlight, and drove away.

Thomas gave chase to the Buick through heavy traffic, finally caught up to the man, and confronted him about the damage. The indignant driver denied breaking the headlight, and Thomas threatened to call the police. The man said nobody would believe their story because Thomas and his friend looked like “two hippy freaks”. At that moment, Thomas said that Moore, who was still in costume as the Lone Ranger, got out of the car and said to the man, “They’ll believe me, citizen!”

(11) TODAY IN HISTORY

August 25, 1939 — The Wizard of Oz opens in theaters around the United States.

In other news, amazing progress continues to take place on the build site. As more structural and garden work gets underway, it’s thrilling to think Pleasant Grove will soon be home to this incomparable park and we wanted to give you a glimpse at one of the more unique structures going in:

This is a model of the “Enchanted Tree” which will be found in our Fantasy Garden, one of the many explorable areas of Evermore. With magical spaces like these around every corner, Evermore will be a place ripe for adventure.

(16) FILE 770 ARCHIVE. Fanac.org is expanding its archive of scanned issues of classic File 770. Hey, some of this stuff is pretty funny, if I do say so myself….

I sat on the bed next to the pile of half frozen fish fingers I was packing into my Louis Vuitton clutch purse and looked up at the dim-witted fool who was under the misguided impression that this was his bedroom. I explained to him how, aside from the fact that Worldcon needs my presence, that I also fully expected to win a Hugo Award for Best Cat Who Edited Something. Oh, Camtrak Freightrain then goes into denial spouting off all sorts of nonsense: there’s no such award he says, the nominees have already been published he says, the award ceremony already happened and it was in the news and everything he says – like that proves anything these days with the lying media spinning all sorts of wild stories. I patiently explained to the poor, poor intellectually limited creature about the role of write-in candidates, jury nullification and how, if you write your name in capitals like this -TIMOTHY THE TALKING CAT – then you get to win all the lawsuits and not pay taxes. “You’d have to start earning some money to pay taxes,” mumbled Camphor Flushwipe sarcastically, knowing he was beaten by a higher intellect.

My vote will go to Jon [Del Arroz]. I haven’t read any of the nominees this year, but for friendship’s sake, I’ll vote for Jon.

And in Best SF Miniatures/etc. –

Again, not my scene. [Rolls 6-sided die]. Um … Star Wars?

However, Finn does bring out that there is not a unity between the Castalia House-published nominees that Vox Day is backing and Jon Del Arroz’ “Happy Frogs” “Dragon Award Finalist Recommendations”. Still, the question remains how many works win that are not on one list or the other, since these are the people who talk more about the Dragon Awards than anyone else.

First of all, we at the Happy Frogs Board of Trustees want to give a hearty congratulations to all the Frogs who croaked their way into Dragon Nomination success. Such an achievement! Happy Frogs are winners….

And we are committed to winning. We at the Happy Frogs firmly believe that 2nd place is first loser. This is why we have to have a talk, fans and frogs alike.

There are some categories where it will be very tough to get further than a nomination because of some big names and anti-frog individuals with loud microphones. It is IMPERATIVE that we throw our collective weights beyond one voice per category to give us the best odds to surpass some of these giants. This is David vs. Goliath v. 2.0 and we have to make sure we go to battle ready.

Therefore, the Happy Frogs Board of Trustees have gotten together and unanimously decided to change our recommendations for this round of voting. This isn’t for lack of love of our prior nominees — we do love you! and we want all frogs and fans to buy and read their books. But these are the voices that have the best chance to win.

It’s not clear exactly who this man is, but he might as well be popping off a selfie or thumbing through his news feed. He seems to gaze into the handheld device in such a way that renders all-too-familiar today, as if he’s just read a bad tweet or recoiling from a Trump-related push notification from the Times. He would almost look unremarkable, if only he and the world around him existed at any point in the past decade.

But the multi-part, New Deal-era mural the man occupies, titled “Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield,” pre-dates the iPhone by seven decades….

The upcoming solar eclipse has already brought some wonderful things to South Carolina, including a huge boost in tourist spending and the promise of a chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut. But there are potential dangers lurking as well—like Lizardmen.

The South Carolina Emergency Management Division, in a Tweet, has issued a tongue-in-cheek advisory on possible paranormal activity during the Aug 21 event, noting that “SCEMD does not know if Lizardmen become more active during a solar eclipse, but we advise that residents of Lee and Sumter counties should remain ever vigilant.”

… Lizardmen are actually a thing in South Carolina. Well, not actually a thing (probably), but they’re the stuff of local legend. It’s basically the state’s version of Bigfoot, only with less hair and more scales. The last reported sighting was in 2015.

There are two writers I owe the most to, because of the personal connection: Larry Niven, my mentor, and Octavia Butler, my big sister. She inspired me to believe it was possible to survive in the field with integrity. Watching her over the years from a distance…and then living walking distance from her for about three years when I moved back into my mother’s house in “the old neighborhood”. Octavia lived on West Boulevard near Washington Boulevard between La Brea and Crenshaw, and because she didn’t drive, I often gave her lifts to autographings and bookstores, and had her over for dinner and conversation. I was in the old neighborhood yesterday, and drove past her house. I’m not 100% certain this was hers, because there is a lot of new building in the area, destroying some of the landmarks. It is POSSIBLE that there were two duplexes side by side, and this is just the one that survived. But…I’m pretty sure. Hers was the door on the Left, I believe.

Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-Wee Herman, playing a wisecracking alien on an Area 51-like military base sounds like pretty much the perfect show. But NBC didn’t pick up this awesome pilot in 2007. The premise: for 40 years, a bunch of misfit, unwilling government employees and researchers have been trying to discover the secrets of the alien and his ship, who still hasn’t even given them his name, until Matthew Lillard (y’know, the guy who played Shaggy in two live-action Scooby-Doo movies) shows up, trying to make a difference. The Area 57 pilot has some pretty great moments, but we may never be truly ready to mix live-action sci-fi and comedy.

Tune in to the audio podcast above for an extensive discussion of “Borne’s” secrets and mysteries. We’re also joined via Skype by the author, who answers (almost) all our pressing questions about the world of “Borne.”

(25) LISTEN UP! Torchwood is back – in Big Finish audio dramas.

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us Trailer

Torchwood is back! The first four episodes of Series 5 are out now from Big Finish Productions, featuring Jack, Gwen and Rhys and four new characters co-created by Russell T Davies. Starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Rhys Williams and Tom Price.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, David Doering, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern, who is not to blame for a slight tweak by OGH.]

Speaking as someone who has been occasionally accused of being cold-blooded, I’m certainly less likely to basking on a sunny rock out in the open during an eclipse. Unless the sunny rock is the only thing that’s still warm, I suppose, but I’ve never met a shadow as cosy as central heating.

Robert E. Vardeman (who I know of as the author of two enjoyable Star Trek tie-in novels) has a new novel out, Darklight Pirates, which is free for the moment on Amazon (and possibly other platforms). The synopsis sounds pretty interesting.

It’s correct — I was thinking about all the things I played with when I was a (semi-bio)chemist, and forgetting that most of the human body is water. Gah. And I can’t even blame it on being too late in the evening my time (3 hours later than posting time shown here). Thoughts not to ponder: is the water Me? Is the telegraph wire the message?

@Soon Lee: Do Americans use the word “Roger”… I can’t remember how long ago I learned the UK usage — but I don’t know how receipt of a transmission is acknowledged in Commonwealth countries. (I expect with something shorter and more constructive than the response of a Mercury astronaut in orbit, on being asked “Are you a turtle?”)What about “Dick”? #25 on the 20 insults in Roxanne. (Plain text version with minor typos; movie clip here.) (More pungent when filmed, as it was only a decade-plus after Watergate.)

Ah, no! young blade! That was a trifle short!
You might have said at least a hundred things
By varying the tone, . . . like this, suppose, . . .
Aggressive: “Sir, if I had such a nose I’d amputate it!”

Friendly: “When you sup It must annoy you, dipping in your cup; You need a drinking-bowl of special shape!”

Practical: “Put it in a lottery! Assuredly ‘twould be the biggest prize!”
Or . . . parodying Pyramus’ sighs . . . Behold the nose that mars the harmony Of its master’s phiz! blushing its treachery!”

— Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said, Had you of wit or letters the least jot: But, O most lamentable man! — of wit You never had an atom, and of letters You have three letters only!— they spell Ass!

I finished listening to Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 1 yesterday, actually. I really enjoyed it. Four solid stories, with the right mix of the mundane and the fantastic and the grotesque that I felt like Torchwood was aiming for on television but didn’t always actually achieve. It’s nice to have them all in Cardiff again, and the new teammembers establish themselves as fitting right in immediately.

I think I’ve finally caught up with reading the Pixel Scrolls in real time after my post-Worldcon perambulations. (I finally slept in my own bed again last night.) It was, as always, a delight to see Filers in person at the con.

That’s a nice report. It seems Donna Maree Hanson and her daughter struggled with the same high floor trams that gave my Mom so much trouble. No idea why they have these old trams running to the ferry terminal, where there’s bound to be many people with luggage.

@Steven Mollmann

I finished listening to Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 1 yesterday, actually. I really enjoyed it. Four solid stories, with the right mix of the mundane and the fantastic and the grotesque that I felt like Torchwood was aiming for on television but didn’t always actually achieve. It’s nice to have them all in Cardiff again, and the new teammembers establish themselves as fitting right in immediately.

Russell T Davies apparently wrote a scene of one of the episodes!

Nice to hear that the new Torchwood audios are closer to what the series used to be at its beginning. Though I still won’t bother, since they killed off most of the characters I really liked, while keeping the ones I didn’t like (Gwen and her boyfriend/husband).

@Heather Rose Jones

I think I’ve finally caught up with reading the Pixel Scrolls in real time after my post-Worldcon perambulations. (I finally slept in my own bed again last night.) It was, as always, a delight to see Filers in person at the con.

@Cora – surprisingly little Rhys in this set, but there is a lot of Gwen. One of the new characters is REALLY good, though; if they keep it up, he might be my favorite. (I never had much affection for any of the Torchwood characters, though; the “missing adventure”-style audios Big Finish has been doing have been much better for Ianto than anything he did on TV, IMO.)

@Iphinome: the original is fascinating, but not as immediate. (Do you know the movie? It has many points of correspondence beside the plot, and is worth seeing as a whole on something larger than YouTube.) OTOH, have you seen Ford’s holiday card featuring an aging de Bergerac witnessed by d’Artagnan & co.? Mike captured the disassembly of an opponent wonderfully. I can’t find our copy, even though I knew where it was some time ago; if you know someone not-young in the upper midwest (or scattered elsewhere), they may know someone who has a copy.

@Cora Not all line #4 trams in Helsinki have high floors. They have also trams on that line with lower floors, so that every coach has also doors into lower floor area. (I know because I rode #4 many times, also with big suitcases.)
Helsinki is phasing out older trams but because of money they cannot do it all at once.
Info on their current fleet (from could of years back): https://www.hel.fi/hkl/en/by-tram/fleet/

Edit: Actually, I found out that from this autumn onward all trams in Helsinki are low floor or partially low floor trams (some sections may have higher floors). Only when there are problems such as broken trams they may have to use older trams with high floors.

@Terhi
Yes, I eventually found the middle section with the low floor, which was easier for my Mom to get into. Though all the number 4 and 5 trams I saw were high floor trams.

Here in Bremen, we had a mix of high and low floor trams running, too, while they were phasing out the high floor trams. And some lines always got the oldest high floor trams. But the high floor trams in Germany have been gone except for some historical models since 2000 or so, which is why I was surprised to still see them in active service in Helsinki.

(19)
GRRM has a post publicizing the Dragon Awards. I guess it’s not a bad thing to have more enthusiastic fans of works voting. Of note to me, was Eric Flint’s involvement in its creation. This is news to me.

Soon Lee: GRRM has a post publicizing the Dragon Awards. I guess it’s not a bad thing to have more enthusiastic fans of works voting.

That’s a very kind move by GRRM, who has considerable bandwidth with his blog.

I’ll consider participating, if and when DragonCon starts caring about its own award, and starts promoting it properly, and figures out how to stop the very obvious ballot-box stuffing which is going on.